It has been a while since our last post and we have been exploring a bit more of St John since then while becoming more familiar with Timing’s systems and performance in various conditions, so there is a bit of catching up to do. From Coral Bay, we left Rams Head to starboard and headed west. There was a good breeze that day (as there has been for a couple of weeks now) and a bit of a sea so it was a bit of a lumpy downwind sail but the boat handled quite well and we made it to Lameshur Bay before we knew it. Most of the south coast of St John is part of the National Park, courtesy of Mr. Rockeffeler, so it is protected and has virtually no sign of any development. Indeed, the only development in Lameshur Bay is an ecological research center, VIERS. Unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to visit the center this time but instead we enjoyed a couple of great hikes, the first (and the longest) to see the pre-Columbian petroglyphs. Although only about 5 miles round trip, it seemed much longer as the initial section seemed to be a never-ending uphill section. We definitely earned our aperitifs and dinner that day! 
After a couple of nights in Lameshur, i.e. on Easter Sunday, we again headed west. The wind was still quite brisk so this time we only rolled out the Genoa and were doing a very comfortable 5+ knots with a following wind and sea. We encountered several boats in a race reaching up to a mark off the western end of St John and then beating up to a windward mark on the south side. The first boat (a monohull) had all (~10) crew on the windward side and were creaming through the waves while the Gunboat catamaran had one hull out of the water.
After a brief stop in Red Hook, St Thomas, where we took the dollar bus (a fantastic way of getting around St T) to Budget Marine and K-Mart, we headed to Caneel Bay where we picked up a mooring for the night. It is always a bit lumpy in Caneel Bay due to the large number of ferries that pass by but also has little protection from swells, especially if they are from the north. So, the next day we beat a hasty retreat to our beloved Francis Bay which is very protected so we truly appreciated the most comfortable nights sleep (apart from rain squalls in the middle of the night) that we had had for about a week. Added to which, we discovered another Salty Dawg boat, Bravo with Tom and Jane, was on a mooring close by so of course we got together to exchange our adventures in the intervening months …. but for coffee in the morning, you will be surprised to hear, not alcoholic beverages.